


Day 24: Love Potion

by thebright1



Series: An Ineffable Plan: A Canon Compliant Love Story [24]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angst, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Speaks Cantonese, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Ineffable Valentines 2020 (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:22:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22888393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebright1/pseuds/thebright1
Summary: “This is very dangerous. I don’t know what god you come from, but you had better pray hard and make sure this is what you actually want.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: An Ineffable Plan: A Canon Compliant Love Story [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620406
Comments: 16
Kudos: 115





	Day 24: Love Potion

**Author's Note:**

> All of the stories in this series are linked together, so if you want a full picture of what exactly is going on, please start with [ Day 1: Chocolate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520329). 
> 
> All the works in this series are also posted as a chaptered work for easier reading/downloading: [ An Ineffable Plan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23081191/chapters/55213303)
> 
> This story has been written for the Ineffable Valentines 2020 Challenge on Tumblr.
> 
> I googled all the Mandarin for this, and don't speak a word myself. Google says mogwai is 'demon' and Tiānshǐ is 'angel'. A 'wu' is a witch.

Tuesday, April 17, 1906, early evening - Chinatown, San Francisco

Aziraphale smells the concoction the woman in front of him has brewed up and nearly gags at the stench. Across the pot, Xi Shi Fan scoffs. “Did you think breaking a love match should smell like roses,  _ mogwai? _ ” she asks. She places the pot back on the fire, and busies herself with a mortar and pestle, turning her back on him. Aziraphale sits in the small kitchen in Xi Shi Fan’s rundown tenement. Xi Shi Fan is a short and stocky woman in her early thirties. Hard work is written into the lines on her hands and face. Her youngest, a boy of almost three, sits on the floor playing with a small black kitten and a piece of string. He had hidden under the table when Aziraphale first came in, but he’s gotten more and more brave, and now sneaks glances when he thinks Aziraphale isn’t looking. Two daughters sit sewing by the fire. They refuse to look at him. He thinks they may be . . . sensitive, like their mother. 

“I told you I am Tiānshǐ, not  _ mogwai _ ,” Aziraphale complains. “And as long as it works, I don’t care what it smells like.” He doesn’t say that it’s one of the worst things he has ever had the misfortune to be exposed to, and he recently spent 3 weeks aboard a crowded ship loaded with over 300 would-be Americans who didn’t have access to bathing water. As nauseating as the voyage was, Aziraphale was grateful for the time to practice his Mandarin. Most of the immigrants in San Francisco only speak their native language. Some of their distrust of the strange blonde Englishman melts when he greets them with a friendly “ Nǐ hǎo”. 

“A strange  Tiānshǐ that wants an anti-love potion,” Xi Shi Fan says. The boy on the floor yelps as the kitten scratches his hand. Xi Shi Fan lifts him easily. She bounces him for a minute or two on her hip until he stops crying, then calls to her eldest daughter, who is tucked in a corner doing some sewing by the firelight. The girl sets down her sewing and takes her little brother into the bedroom to put him to sleep. They’re a big family-- seven in total, all living in this dingy two room apartment. Xi Shi Fan is six months pregnant. 

Aziraphale says nothing. He has been in San Francisco for almost six weeks, and he’s spent the majority of that time tracking down Xi Shi Fan. He had been disappointed to learn, upon his arrival in Shanghai that the preeminent  _ wu _ had left to start a new life in America just a few weeks earlier. He’s been halfway around the globe now, but Xi Shi Fan is the last in a long generation of  _ wu _ . Her great-grandmother had written an excellent book Aziraphale had been able to get hold of recently. In the book, Xi Shi Fan’s great-grandmother had described a love potion that was intended to bind the souls of the lovers together forever. And if she could make something to bind two souls, then hopefully her great-granddaughter could make something to break such a bond. 

Aziraphale is aware that he is grasping at straws, but he feels just a bit desperate. Crowley has been asleep for over fifty years now. Aziraphale literally aches for the demon’s company. When they had parted, Aziraphale had expected that Crowley might stay away for longer than normal. He had not expected a note declaring that Crowley was feeling tired and would be taking an extra long nap. He had also not expected that nap to last decades. Aziraphale wonders if Crowley thinks he can stay asleep forever. It will not solve the problem. 

Crowley refused to help Aziraphale find a way to break the soul bond. Whenever Aziraphale brought the subject up, Crowley just said it wasn’t possible and he wasn’t going to waste his time on it. They would just have to be careful. 

And then he’d asked for holy water . . . called it  _ insurance _ , but Aziraphale knew what it actually was. A suicide pill. Hell would torture him for an eternity if they found out about the bond. Aziraphale is not sure what Heaven would do. He has a vision of a trial called in the Theater of Stars, the Heavenly Host assembled to watch the first angel Fall in almost 6000 years. He’s not sure he would survive it. Crowley had, but he wasn’t Crowley. He didn’t have Crowley’s confidence, his bravery. And with both of them in Hell’s clutches, their torment could be only as limited as the imagination. 

“You look sad,” Xi Shi Fan says, breaking into Aziraphale’s train of thought. 

He harumphs at the term, but answers grudgingly, “I am thinking about the past.” 

Xi Shi Fan makes a tsk tsk noise. “My grandmother said it is better to plan for the future than shed a tear for the past,  _ mogwai _ .” 

Aziraphale rolls his eyes at the term. Xi Shi Fan knew he was not human when he showed up on her doorstep earlier this afternoon. She had shut the door in his face as soon as he smiled, but Aziraphale’s persistence, and his cash, had changed her mind. “When you are as old as I am, my dear, there is a lot more past to consider.” 

Xi Shi Fan sniffs. “Also a lot more future. More than my grandmother ever had, even though you talk like her.” Her daughter returns from the bedroom, little brother now absent, and resumes her sewing before the fireplace. She doesn’t say a word, or look up from the floor. 

Aziraphale clears his throat. “Thank you for this,” he says, eager to change the subject. “I have come a long way to see you.” 

“I expect you have,” Xi Shi Fan says. She takes the mortar and gently slides the thick black paste into a small blue bottle, and then goes to pot over the fire. She fills the bottle with just enough liquid to cover the paste, and then puts a cork in the top. She shakes it a few times, and then hands it out to the angel sitting at her kitchen table. 

Aziraphale takes the bottle from her, examining it closely. He looks dubiously at the rest of the leftover liquid in the pot. “What will you do with the rest?”

“That’s our dinner.” 

Aziraphale tries very hard not to look completely aghast. Xi Shi Fan laughs so hard her face turns red. “I’m joking….. Oh, just a joke ….” He smiles tightly, and stands. Xi Shi Fan wipes a tear from her eye. “You deserved that,  _ mogwai _ . You are too serious.” 

He nods, anxious to leave. “So . . . the person just drinks this, and then . . ?”

“Then whatever love bond they have will be broken.” 

“Permanently?”

“Permanently.” 

Aziraphale slides the bottle into the pocket of his coat, takes his hat from the kitchen table. “Thank you very much, madam. I’m . . . what is the American saying? Much obliged.” He turns to leave, but she grabs his coat sleeve. 

“ _ Mogwai, Tiānshǐ,  _ whatever you actually are, please think about what you are doing.” 

“I assure you, I have thought about it.”

“This is very dangerous. I don’t know what god you come from, but you had better pray hard and make sure this is what you actually want.” 

Aziraphale goes very still. “I never said-”

“You don’t have to.” Her eyes are dead serious now. She casts a glance to her daughters and then switches into broken English. “Angel love deep. End love, maybe end you.” She switches back to Cantonese. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He nods stiffly. “I think so. Thank you for your concern, but I think it is misplaced.” He gives her the kindest smile he can muster. It looks more like a grimace. 

* * *

Back in his boarding house room, Aziraphale sits down in a chair and considers the blue bottle. Considers everything, really, because this concoction could potentially destroy him according to Xi Shi Fan. But it could also save him. Save them both. He wonders if Crowley thought about the holy water this same way. 

_ This is the right thing to do, _ he thinks.  _ It is the  _ kind _ thing to do.  _ An angel and a demon cannot have a soul bond. It’s incredibly dangerous for both of them. And Crowley . . . poor Crowley. Trapped in this with him, taken advantage of in a moment of vulnerability. Aziraphale had blundered into Eden, let Eve eat the apple, given away his flaming sword, and made a soul bond with a hereditary enemy who was not in his right mind.

Aziraphale feels very sorry for himself suddenly. It’s not a position he’s been in often, but he’s here now and he wallows in his self-pity. He hasn’t managed to do anything right. Not one thing in his whole existence. Certainly he hasn’t done anything right by Heaven’s standards. No wonder God doesn’t speak to him.. 

The last time he’d been in Heaven, he’d been reprimanded, again, for using too many powerful miracles. Gabriel had talked about how Aziraphale was a drain on the power of Heaven.  _ The Heavenly Host can’t be full of God’s righteous anger and prepared to smite our enemies if all of our power is spent on making sure the humans’ lives are more comfortable.  _

Gabriel has sent a new list of rules he must follow and they are getting more arbitrary and byzantine every day. 

He feels so unbearably lonely. It’s only been five decades since he and Crowley argued, but it feels like millenia. It’s been lonelier than his first 1000 years, flying ever westward chasing the sun and the humans. He has more time ahead of him than Xi Shi Fan’s grandmother could ever dream of, but it feels . . . empty. 

In times like these, Aziraphale wishes God would speak to him. He has never had the type of relationship Crowley described with Her, all those centuries ago, lying next to him in Rome. Aziraphale has spoken with Her only twice in six thousand years. And one of those times he was purposefully deceiving Her, afraid of the punishment he would receive for admitting that he had shown mercy for Adam and Eve. He wonders if there is a way he could speak to Jesus. Aziraphale remembers how good and clean and just wonderful he’d felt after Jesus had spoken to the Heavenly Host. He remembers the excitement of it all. He remembers thinking that if Crowley would repent, God would forgive. He remembers hearing  _ Love thy enemies _ and feeling this wonderful hope inside him. But then he’d learned how Crowley had sinned, how Crowley had been cast out, how Heaven had turned against him. And all that hope had died, even before the memos from Gabriel started. 

_ The Fallen cannot be forgiven.  _

_ There is no repentance for those condemned to Hell.  _

_ The Fallen do not have souls.  _

Aziraphale has never prayed in his life. He’s an angel, he knows there are proper channels for getting a message to God. Gabriel, for one. The Metatron, secondly. But he knows that humans do it all the time. They say they are talking to God, listening for answers. They look for messages from Her in the common things around them-- a sunny day, a beautiful flower, a smile. 

He feels a bit silly, but he gets down on his knees. He clasps his hands together in front of him, the blue bottle between his palms. And he begins to talk to God. He tells God all of his worries, all of his fears. He apologizes for his deception about the sword. He closes his eyes and pretends that God is a friend. That Jesus’s message was not just for the humans, but for him. He asks for forgiveness. He asks for guidance. He prays for a sign. He hears silence. 

Around five in the morning, his face red and tear-stained, Aziraphale goes to the dingy window and looks outside. He feels pathetic. He’s spent all night on his knees talking to himself, pretending God could hear him, pretending he was just another human on Earth that She might send a sign. Outside the window, he can see early morning foot traffic, and the light. He has listened all night. He’s heard nothing. 

He holds the bottle up, shakes it to remix the sedimentation. This is it. He’s going to put an end to this nonsense once and for all. No more hiding from Heaven and praying to God for, somehow, things to be different. Who knows? Maybe he won’t even feel lonely anymore. He puts his fingers on the cork to the bottle, and the floor begins to shake. He has only a microsecond to think  _ earthquake _ before he stumbles, catching himself on the window frame. He stuffs the bottle into his pocket. There’s a roaring in his ears and then he’s stumbling, lurching side to side as he tries and fails to retain his balance. He can hear the building around him crumbling, bricks falling, the floorboards shifting and cracking. He puts a hand out to try to keep himself upright, and then the wall gives away and he’s suddenly falling through the air, two stories down. He can hear people screaming around him. He doesn’t have time to manifest his wings. He doesn’t have time to perform a miracle. 

His body smacks into the street below, and he rolls. His leg breaks. He hears it, feels a sharp pain rocket through him, but he can’t scream because he can’t breathe. There’s no air in his lungs. The ground is still rumbling and shaking. Pieces of buildings are falling all around him. He comes to a stop finally and begins performing miracles. He snaps his fingers, his breath returns. He snaps again and his leg knits itself back together. He tries to stand, and falls. The ground is still shaking. Around him people are running and falling. A building to his left collapses entirely, the walls folding like a house of cards. Behind him, a wall collapses, and a floorboard flies through the air, landing on his head. His vision swims, and blackness comes up to meet him.

* * *

Unconscious, Aziraphale finds himself in the Theater of Stars. He sees Michael and Lucifer square off on stage. It’s the vote, he realizes. The aftermath of the vote. The War. The casting out. He hears angels shouting in confusion. He sees weapons being drawn. Civility breaking down. He hears screams and sobs. There is so much going on at once, he doesn’t know where to look, where he belongs. He is terrified. 

“You cannot question Her will!”

“It can’t be a mystery to all of us! How are we supposed to know what to do?”

“Please no, you can’t do this!” 

“Come with me!” 

“I won’t be given orders by anyone other than Her!” 

“Please, please, no.” 

In the chaos, Aziraphale feels a tingle in the base of his spine. Familiar. Oh. Oh, of course. Before the Fall, that means . . .

* * *

Aziraphale comes to suddenly, gasping. He’s staring at a gray sky. Around him there is a deafening silence. He sits up, sees the ruined buildings. Bricks and chunks of masonry and heavy wooden beams lay where two and three story homes used to. 

In a few minutes, he will be desperate for someone to come help him. In a few minutes, he will grasp Crowley’s arms in his own, joy and sadness and grief mixing. In a few minutes, he will look Crowley in the eyes and thank God for him. And he will mean every word. He will not think that the earthquake is a sign from God. That would be the ultimate hubris. But he does get the sign he was looking for that day and it is Crowley, appearing when he is needed most. 

* * *

1941

After the Church, after the champagne, after Aziraphale realizes just what Crowley has been trying to tell him for almost one hundred and fifty years, after Crowley leaves the shop with a softly uttered ‘goodnight’, Aziraphale thinks of the blue bottle. He walks to the safe he keeps under a pile of books hidden in the back room. He puts in the combination and takes out the blue bottle, with Xi Shi Fan’s anti-love potion. He walks outside, opens the bottle, and pours the contents into the street. 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos!


End file.
